


as said by albus ... dumbledore

by kctheb



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: & immediately thought of him pulling this, & now its here, F/F, because i write what i want to read, doesn't mean it has to be a good one, eighth-year au, harry has to give a speech, i only wrote this bc i wondered what harry would do, if he had to give a speech at some event or other, malfoy as head boy, oh yeah also the eighth-years are revolutionaries sorry i make all the rules, so I wrote it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 01:17:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21235745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kctheb/pseuds/kctheb
Summary: Harry had, quite frankly, been dreading the idea of having to give a speech to the ragged, war-torn group that was left of his class. Then, inspiration struck. Who said anything about actuallysayinganything?





	as said by albus ... dumbledore

**Author's Note:**

> oh wow, you say, another fic already? oh yes. i've had this written for weeks but i totally forgot about it. enjoy harry being a little shit. as a post i saw recently on tumblr said, "harry on felix felicis was james 24/7", so here's harry channeling some of that felix felicis/james potter energy. also i just want you to know that grammarly told me this was "too short" so that hurt my feelings

Harry shifted uncomfortably on the hard-plastic chair, caught between dreading and anticipating what would come next. Professor McGonagall stood behind a podium on the teacher’s platform, and behind her sat the rest of the Hogwarts staff, plus Minister Shacklebolt and a handful of other Ministry workers.

McGonagall was wrapping up her speech, and Harry shifted forwards in his seat a bit to prepare himself. “... After eight long years, the Hogwarts class of ’99 has finally managed to find themselves at their graduation ceremony.” She gazed out at the crowd, and Harry was shocked to see tears forming in the normally unflappable Scottish woman’s eyes. “Words could not possibly express how proud I am of each and every one of you. You’ve already proven yourself to be great and valuable resources to the Wizarding World, and I look forward to seeing what else this class is capable of.”

Everyone around Harry, and including Harry, stood up and applauded as their Headmistress bowed her head. There was a sharp whistle from the Slytherin section, followed by a loud, indignant, “Ow!” from Zabini.

McGonagall raised her hands, and the graduating students fell silent, retaking their seats. Harry was tempted to keep standing, if only because he knew he was going to be standing right back up, but took his seat to deflect attention from himself, if only for a short few moments. “Instead of me giving a long-winded speech about the accomplishments you have all made in these eight years, I will be handing off the speech-giving to your fellow classmates. If we could all welcome Me. Potter to the stage for his speech.”

Harry sighed and stood up. More clapping. Ron wolf-whistled, then yelped when his mother leaned forward and smacked him in the back of the head. Harry gave a slight grin as he carefully made his way through the sea of chairs and up to the podium. “Mr. Potter,” McGonagall said in a quiet aside, “good luck.”

Harry’s grin grew larger as he took in her words. “Don’t worry, Professor,” he said cheerfully, and the Scottish woman’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t need luck for this. I’ll just be taking a leaf of the Marauder’s books.” There was a sudden look of dread on McGonagall’s face, and Flitwick beamed. “If you’ll excuse me now, I believe I was invited to give a speech.”

Harry had, quite frankly, been dreading the idea of having to give a speech to the ragged, war-torn group that was left of his class. He felt it would be insulting to praise their accomplishments and not bring up the sacrifices that had been made to achieve them. And a graduation ceremony was no place for mourning or grief. They’d bloody well fucking made it, they deserved to have a day to celebrate. Harry also, privately, felt as though bringing up the war would make it look like he was trying to grab attention. What could he say? Rita’s words really stuck with him, never mind the fact that Harry had never much liked being the center of attention in the first place.

Besides, Harry knew for a fact that Hermione and Malfoy were planning on having a moment of silence during their shared Head speech. (And honestly, Harry still wasn’t over his shock at Malfoy being named Head Boy. Sure, he’d taken to the position with aplomb, and done a very fine job working with Hermione to patch up all of the holes in Hogwarts, both physical and not, but _damn_. _Malfoy,_ huh.) Harry shook his head to clear his thoughts as he stepped up to the podium.

The idea for his speech had come to him while he was sitting in the eighth-year common room, internally lamenting the fact that he had to give a speech at all when he’d caught sight of a list that the Ravenclaws had posted on the message board. It wasn’t anything special, just a long sheet of parchment where other eighth years had written down some of Dumbledore’s more ridiculous sayings. And it had hit him. Harry didn’t want to give a speech, so why deliver a _speech_? Sure, he had to stand in front of his classmates for at least two minutes, but McGonagall had certainly placed no restrictions on what he was allowed to say. Hermione had glanced up with a warily curious look in her eyes when Harry had started to quietly cackle to himself in the middle of his Potions homework. To be fair to his bushy-haired friend, that was rarely a good sign when it came to _anyone_, much less _Harry_ _James_ _Potter_.

Harry placed his hands down on the podium, still grinning brightly. He saw many confused faces in the audience, no doubt those who knew his distaste of being in the limelight, and his cheeks began to hurt.

“Hello,” Harry said cheerfully, “my name is Harry Potter. Most of you probably know me because we’ve been classmates for the last eight years.” There were some scattered snickers in the crowd. “The others probably know me because I’ve done a lot of dumb shit in the last eighteen years.”

“Mr. Potter!” McGonagall protested from behind him.

_Oh yeah_, thought Harry, catching sight of the reporters in the back of the room. _She did place one restriction on me. No swearing from now on, sorry professor._

“Our beloved Headmistress has asked me to say at least two minutes' worth of words to all of you, so I’ll certainly try my best to fill that quota. If you don’t mind, I’d like to start out with a quote from our old departed Headmaster, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Edmund James Dakota Leroy Malcolm Ryan” – there were some disbelieving looks thrown at him from the crowd, but there were just as many people laughing as they realized what he was doing. Ron, in particular, was leaning against Seamus as Harry continued to list random names from the parchment in front of him. Hermione put her face in her hands.

Ginny was grinning at him from where she was sitting squished between Bill and Fleur. She blew him a dramatic kiss when she caught him staring at her. He may or may not have fumbled the next few names.

Finally, though, all good tales draw to a close. “... Richard Montgomery Charles Stephan Dumbledore. That quote, of course, being: ‘Nitwick! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!’” Harry gave the crowd one last final grin. “And that is all I have the time for. Thank you!”

As he turned away from the podium to head back to his chair, he saw the entire hall stand up to applaud for him, and he felt his cheeks burn. He caught McGonagall’s eyes as he was leaving the stage, and she looked amused, yet exasperated. Flitwick was beaming from ear to ear, bouncing in his chair. “A very well executed speech, Mr. Potter.” He squeaked.

McGonagall stopped him a few steps short of clearing the stage. “Mr. Potter,” she said, voice carefully stern. He turned his head towards her and saw a very small smile on her face. “James would be proud.”

Harry ducked his head. He wasn’t quite used to being compared favorably to his father in accordance with anything other than his looks. He was looking forward to it, though.

\---

Hermione and Malfoy’s speech took on a much more professional air than Harry’s had, and he was glad. It was good that someone took the speeches seriously, and he found himself listening to the pair of them very carefully.

“... Despite everything that has been thrown at us the last year or so,” Malfoy spoke, and heads bowed across the room. “We, and the Wizarding World through us, has grown stronger. We all have suffered terrible losses, lost people we never wanted to live without,” Harry felt heavy grief cloud his mind at the reminder of the family he had gained, and then had slipped helplessly out of his grasp, “but our pain has given us purpose.”

“That purpose is to rebuild better than before. Hogwarts stands strong, the Ministry,” Hermione paused, before giving a reluctant nod, “is getting there.” Kingsley heaved a sigh behind her, and Harry’s lips twitched. “We have decided that we will no longer tolerate unfounded prejudice, and moreover we will not allow it to turn us against our brothers and sister, our friends and allies. We, for a surprising first in the history of the Wizarding World, have all banded together in agreement and decided to be better. We, as a collective, do not wish to harbor the kind of hatred that Dark Lords and their followers feed on, nor will we allow the kind of prejudices that they build their platforms on. We came out of the Second Blood War stronger than any of us ever dreamed, and it wasn’t the actions of a few that caused it. Everyone, both in this room and out of it, worked together to decide that we were not willing to allow this to happen again. We decided that we are not willing to stagnate and leave spaces open for those seeking absolute power. Instead, we have decided that we want to move forward, move into a time and place where we do not have to fear an uprising, or another war, because there is no foundation for it to begin to take root.”

Harry found himself smiling despite himself. Hermione had come a long way in terms of convincing speeches. He still remembered the S.P.E.W induction speech she had given way back when, before they’d been forced to learn how to convince others to their causes. He found himself looking forward to the future that Hermione and Malfoy were painting, and looked forward even more to it being the world that Teddy would be growing up in.

“After eight long years, we’ve made it here. We’re graduating.” Malfoy said, and Zabini whistled again. He also got jabbed by Greengrass’ elbow again. “It is at this point where we leave Hogwarts as students, and enter the Wizarding World as the educated future. I do not doubt that our paths will diverge into many different courses, but I also do not doubt that Brown and Greengrass will not allow us to stray from one another for too long.”

“You’re damn right!” Lavender shouted, and Greengrass nodded in agreement.

“We’d like to formally close this graduation ceremony with a few words from one of our fellow students, Seamus Finnegan.”

Harry turned slightly to see Seamus freeze in place, confusion evident on his face.

“Don’t worry, Seamus, we don’t need you to come up here.” Hermione waved away his concern.

Malfoy honest to Merlin grinned. “In the words of Finnegan, I expect all of you to ‘go big, or go bigger’.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! please leave a comment or a kudos if you liked it!


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